This month’s tutorial will walk you through creating a calendar for 2006. The article will explain how to use a digital kit to create your own calendar with your favorite photos. Make several re-prints (use different photos for each if you like!) and then spiral-bind them for the perfect personalized gift!
This calendar was made with Photoshop, but it uses the basic functions and tools available in many other image-editing programs, including Photoshop Elements.
The calendar kit I am using is from Matter Of Scrap. The kit includes both jpgs for digital scrapbooking and PDF files for each month for paper scrapbookers who can print out the pages and embellish the traditional way.
Getting started
(1) Open up the jpg for the month you want to work with. What you’ll see is the calendar without the month title/text. I am going to work with the May calendar first, since I have the perfect photo for it!
(2) Now, open the photo that you want to use. Using the MOVE TOOL, (see fig. 1) drag the photo over to the calendar jpg that you opened in Step 1. When you “let go”, the photo will have copied itself onto your calendar page! At this point, you might have to resize your photo to fit the page. Click on the photo on your page, then click on one of the corner ‘handles’, then drag ‘in’ to make the photo smaller. (Hold down the SHIFT key to keep the aspect ratio.) A large (high resolution) photo can be resized smaller without affecting the resolution when it’s printed.
(Note: If your photo is too small, and you want to resize bigger, you will lose some of quality, which will matter if you plan on printing. I don’t recommend resizing bigger if you are going to print your calendar. Instead, choose some more photos and do a multi-photo collage.)
Fig. 1
Do a SAVE AS and give your project a different name. Remember to save often.
Adding elements
Since this is going to be a pretty simple layout, I’m just going to add some photo corners (included in the Calendar Kit). Open up the PNG file for the photo corner (or any other element you wish to add). Drag it onto your calendar page the same way you dragged the photo. Using the MOVE TOOL, position it where you want it.
(If your photo corners end up ‘under’ your photo, just click on the photo corner layer in the layers palette and drag it so it’s on top of the photo layer.)
If you want to add any other elements to your calendar to dress it up, go for it! You can add alphas, quotes, ribbons, etc.
Add Drop Shadows: Add a slight drop shadow to the photo, photo corners, and any other elements to make them more realistic. In the layers palette, click on the layer thumbnail of the item you want to add a drop shadow to select it. Click the icon (see fig. 2) to add a layer style and choose ‘drop shadow’. Make your adjustments (see fig. 3) if needed and click OK.
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Adding the month/title
Open up the file for the title of the month and drag it onto the calendar. Position it where you want it. It can be resized (smaller). Again, if the month/title is under a layer and not visible, just click on it in the layers palette and drag it to the top of the stack.
Adding events/text
I’m going to add in a birthday and anniversary using the ‘stamped’ elements from the kit to highlight those dates on the calendar. The stamps from the kit are large to be versatile but I want them to fit within the area for the date so I’ve resized them smaller. If you want to add some text, just click on the TEXT TOOL (see fig. 1) and type it in. You can make the text smaller the same way you resize a photo (SHIFT will keep the aspect ratio). Click ENTER when you are done.
When you are happy with your page, save it again and move on to the next month! (Remember to save!) Pretty soon you’ll have a whole year’s worth of memorable photos!
What next?
It’s easy to reproduce multiple copies of your calendar to give out as gifts (think Grandparents and far-away family). After I finished my calendar I printed up several copies and had them spiral bound at the local print shop. I gave them away as gifts to the grandparents. These also make great memory keepers to send to loved ones deployed in the military. You can also save your calendar images as desktop wallpapers.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!
THE CALENDAR KIT
If you would like to purchase the kit that I used for my tutorial, please visit my boutique at www.matterofscrap.com/boutique. The kit comes with both digital files and printable PDF files to embellish if you are a paper scrapper. Visit Matter of Scrap for more digital ideas and lots of high-quality designer digital scrapbooking kits!
Clara Wallace is the owner and designer at Matter Of Scrap Digital Scrapbooking and is active in the digital scrapbooking community. Her layouts have been published in the Simple Scrapbooks Digital Scrapbooking idea books, Scrapbooking.com Magazine, and her exclusive kit is featured as a download in the recent Simple Scrapbooking Digital Scrapbooking 4 issue. You can find more tutorials at her site, Matter of Scrap.
To find the products mentioned in this article and shown in these layouts, check with your local scrapbook retailer. Look at our Premier Retail Stores for coupons to a store near you.
